The Internet has become a truly global medium for communication and commerce. A person can access the Internet from virtually anywhere in the world providing they have access to, at least, a personal computer and a communication network. The networks are conventionally provided by cable, such as telephone connections, although wireless networks are developing. The advent of the World Wide Web (the Web) has extended the Internet to a low cost, global, broadcast medium. A superficial surf of the Web identifies a vast array of web sites in almost every language on the planet.
Although the Web has opened opportunities for electronic commerce and communication, it has not overcome the barrier of language. A business offering products for sale over the Internet is faced with the difficulty of a significant proportion of the potential market using a foreign language. Although many people speak English as a second language, there can be problems caused by non-English speakers misunderstanding the message presented on a web page.
One way of overcoming the aforementioned problem is to provide mirror sites in a range of common languages. While this incurs a cost overhead, it is economic compared to the cost of lost sales from lack of understanding of a product offering.
Web pages in multiple languages can overcome the problem of offering a product or service for sale, but it does not solve the problem of communication, such as negotiating the sale. Many web pages encourage a purchaser to email the owner of the web page to seek information or make purchases. If the native language of the purchaser is different from the seller, the language barrier may again lead to a lost sale.
The language barrier in email is also faced by multinational corporations. Email is fast becoming the most common form of medium security corporate communication. However, significant problems are encountered if the email is not in the native language of the recipient. The recipient is faced with the options of either trying to glean a meaning from a few recognised words or facing a delay, and potentially significant cost, while an accurate translation is made. The speed and convenience of email is lost if the email needs to be translated before it can be read.
A solution to aspects of the problem described above has been proposed by Boucher et al in U.S. Pat. No. 5,884,246. In the Boucher approach the address of a translation site is concatenated onto the destination address of the communication so that the communication is delivered to the translation site. The communication is translated at the translation site and the translated communication is forwarded to the recipient at the destination address. The Boucher approach has three problems. Firstly, it is not transparent to the sender which may be a significant barrier in an electronic commerce environment. Secondly, it is language specific for each communication because the sender specifies the translation site rather than the recipient selecting a desired translation. Thirdly, the Boucher approach fails if no suitable electronic translation is available.
Numerous approaches to making electronic translations of documents exist in the prior art. For instance, Japanese patent application number 8-146848 describes a translation method that applies “fuzzy inference” using a vocabulary dictionary, a grammar dictionary and a semantic dictionary that form a knowledge base. And Japanese patent application number 8-173478 describes a machine translation method that uses an intermediate code as a common gateway for all translations. Communications are translated into the common code before transmission and then to a desired language after transmission. Neither patent describes a translation method with sufficient flexibility for modern communication.
Reference may also be had to Japanese patent application number JP 9-72224 in the name of Toshiba Co Ltd. This patent describes a conventional machine translation system but with the additional feature of allowing the user to request retranslating of the communication if the user is dissatisfied with the accuracy of the first translation. The Toshiba approach requires the user to redefine the parameters used to perform the machine translation. Although Toshiba makes the retranslation request easier, it does not make the processing of the translation automatic. Rather, the user must have sufficient technical understanding to modify the translation parameters.
None of the known prior art translation systems offer flexibility and transparency in translating electronic communications.